


Icework

by aTasteofCaramell



Category: Marvel (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canon, Gen, Heart-to-heart Blowout, Identity Issues, Loki is upset, Mid-Thor (movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 20:01:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/828278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aTasteofCaramell/pseuds/aTasteofCaramell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki finally gave in to the weakness and he crumpled to the floor. He couldn't hear Eir over the chaotic noise in his own head.</p><p>Weakness, pest, second-hand, second prince, sworn enemy, Jotun, Frost Giant. Hurting father. Father. Father. Father.<br/>----<br/>We see Loki discovering his true form. We see him confront Odin. And then we see him on the throne. But what happens in between?</p><p> </p><p>(For those who care, I now have an email address (atasteofcaramell at gmail dot com) and a Twitter account where I will post writing progresses (twitter.com/tasteofcaramell).)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icework

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Shadow of the Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/715383) by [aTasteofCaramell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aTasteofCaramell/pseuds/aTasteofCaramell). 



Loki stood as if dead, watching the guards pick Odin up from the stairs. His thoughts burst through his mind, whirling and twisting through each other until he couldn’t think. Numbed through. He followed the guards out as they called for help. 

Help.

Odin…

More people flocked to them, a few girls ran for Eir, and Loki simply walked behind them all, feeling himself grow so weak that he thought might faint. Had he done this? Had he driven his father to death? No, not his father, no, he was still breathing, not his father, the Allfather, king of Asgard, he stood in the background, currents of people flowing around him, paying him no heed. Slights and weakness and trouble and traitor now…driving his father to this…not his father, Odin. Not his father. Not his father. Cast aside, monster. Frost Giant. Firstborn of Laufey. Traitor. Disease. Pestilent wart on the face of Asgard.

“What is it? What has happened?” Frigga glided her way through them all as the guards bearing Odin made it to his chambers. Eir was with her. They set him down on the bed. Frigga cupped his face in her hands. 

“Odin. Allfather,” she called. 

Eir took one of his hands and was saying something to Frigga. Frigga nodded. The guards stepped back, the crowd dissipated, giving them room, the nurses remaining close to Eir. The river flowed past Loki again and left him standing at the door. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Frigga. Mother. Not mother. Mother. Not mother…

Loki finally gave in to the weakness and he crumpled to the floor right where he stood, not bothering to make his way to a seat. He breathed deeply, sitting cross-legged, palms flat on the smooth surface of the tiling. He stared down on it at the patterns weaving their way through the marble, hearing Eir’s soft voice speaking. Explaining. He couldn’t listen to her over the chaotic noise in his own head.

Weakness, pest, second-hand, second prince, sworn enemy, Jotun, Frost Giant. Hurting father. Father. Father. Father.

“Loki?”

Loki heard himself breathing, deeply, quickly, his gaze fastened at the floor in front of him. He couldn’t get enough air to lighten the tight heaviness in his chest. Soft fabric touched his hand as Frigga knelt down next to him, on the floor. 

“Loki,” her hand touched his face and the spell broke. Loki looked up. “What is it? What happened?”

Loki’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He couldn’t speak. 

“Your father is fine. It—it is the Odinsleep.”

Father. Weakness surged through Loki once more and his head drooped. He found his voice. “It’s—it’s been so long since—I didn’t—”

“I know,” Frigga said. Loki glanced up at the bed, where servants worked, gathering the blankets and pillows, and the beginnings of the golden light glowing around the bed as they worked on the spell that would allow Odin deep rest. “You were with him?”

“Yes.” Loki ducked his head once more. 

“What is it?” Frigga asked again, her hand touching his. “What happened?”

“We…” Loki glanced at his hand; a pale cream. Clean. Asgardian. “We argued…”

“About Thor?” Frigga said gently.

Loki shuddered. Brother. He jerked his hand away from hers and held it in front of his face. “I—” he glanced to the door. “I need a moment. I need to—I need—” He got to his feet and, pushing away Frigga’s touch, fled the room.

“Loki! Wait, Loki!” Frigga called from behind him, but she didn’t offer pursuit.

Loki went to his room and fell against a bookcase, gasping hard, gripping the wood until cracks appeared in its surface. He shuddered, breaths trembling.

“My lord?”

He jerked, turning around, to find a servant woman standing there in the entrance to the water-room, a rag and scrubbing brush in hand.

Loki forced his lips apart, feeling himself choking. “I need ice.”

“My lord?” she questioned.

“Ice,” Loki repeated, voice stronger and harsher with urgency. “I need a large bowl of ice, here, immediately.”

“Yes, my lord.” The woman looked scared. She scurried from the room. Loki turned and caught sight of his face in the mirror. His hair disheveled, eyes glaring and wild. Pain pricked his hands, and he realized he was digging his nails into his palms. Loki looked at his hands again, then at his face in the mirror. He touched one cheek. 

His body felt foreign. He felt foreign. 

He was foreign.

He raked his fingernails across the skin of his face, and to his surprise and indifference, a long scratch split open. 

The servant returned with the ice. Loki snatched the bowl from her, hard, some of the pieces falling out onto the carpet and glittering there like diamonds.

“Get out. Now.” His voice teetered in the midst of a whisper and a scream. She fled.

Loki set the bowl on the bed and plunged both of his hands into it. A flash of cold, and then a cooling sensation spread across his skin. Loki pulled his hands back out, but they remained pale. He picked up a handful with one hand and pressed it against the back of the other. He took a piece and ran it across his skin.

Turn. Turn. Turn.

This was why he liked the cold. Even in this form, he liked the cold. Why was he in this form?

“Turn, damn you!” he hissed, and bit off some of the ice and let it sit on his tongue while he sucked it. His fingers were turning numb, but not turning color. His cheek burned and two tiny drops of blood slipped down and hit one of his thumbs.

“Loki.”

Loki tensed, closing both of his hands around the melting ice. “Please leave.” His voice was roughened and quiet.

“You scared Myida,” Frigga said. “She told me she thought perhaps you had been burnt.”

Loki took his hands out of the bowl and turned, his voice clearing. “She told you?”

“She was worried.” Frigga put out a hand. “What happened to your face?”

Loki knocked her hand away and stepped backwards, slipping his own hand back into the bowl, where it sat behind him on the bed. “Frost Giants burn people,” he said, clenching his teeth in anger and horror. “With ice. It’s a flame built from cold. They freeze you with a touch. Their own bodies are weapons. The Ljosaldfar have the gift of nature in sorcery. Jotuns, they—are gifted in illusions. Did you know that? As a people, their sorcerers usually have the gift of illusions. Like the Ljosaldfar sorcerers usually have the gift of nature.”

“Loki, what happened in the weapons vault?” Frigga asked softly, confusion and worry playing over her face.

His world crumbled all at once, and his legs gave out. Loki sat on the bed, ignoring the sharp pains going through his hand at the chill of the ice. Again, his voice left him and he could only speak in the breath of a whisper.

“Did I ever burn you?”

Frigga’s face cleared and her fingers went to her mouth. “Oh, Loki.”

“Did I?” His voice was breaking, and for a terrifying, humiliating instant her image blurred. 

“How did you—” she began.

“Did I?” His voice was bordering a scream again. “Tell me!”

Fear crossed her face. She was afraid of him, now that he knew what he was. Had she always been afraid of him? “No.”

“Do not lie to me!” His fury and pain was growing. He found himself shaking. 

She came forward, timidly, stretching out a hand. “Loki, listen to me—”

“Do not touch me!” Loki ducked under her reach and, sliding off the bed, rounded it and put it between him and Frigga. In the sudden scramble, the bowl of ice overturned and spilled crystals and water across the carpet. 

“Loki, you never burned me,” Frigga said, and she rounded the bed as well, but stayed a distance away from him as he stood with his back against the door that led to his balcony. 

“Stop lying!” Loki shouted. He felt magic flowing through his limbs as his anger built. He put his palms against the door to keep it from accidentally sparking out. He leaned forward. “Stop lying to me, Mother!” 

“Loki!” Frigga stood rigid with her hands at her sides. “Listen to me!”

Loki’s chest heaved. He felt himself drowning. 

“When your father picked you up, you changed your form by yourself,” Frigga said, quietly, gently, desperately. 

Loki’s lips trembled beyond his control. “How—?” 

“There were times when you shifted back, but whenever we touched you, you returned to Aesir form. Over time, you stopped shifting to Jotun form.”

She’d said it. Loki’s body sank a few inches as he slid partway down the door. Jotun. “But…”

“But you never burned us. Any of us.”

It became harder and harder to form injured sounds into words. “Who knows?”

“No one but your father and I, Heimdall, and you.”

“Thor…?”

“Thor does not know.”

Loki felt dark laughter bubbling up out of him. “How did the Allfather manage to hide me from his warriors? How did he manage to explain an Aesir baby on a Jotunheim battlefield? How did you manage to hide for all of these years the shame of adopting a Frost Giant into the Aesir royal family?”

“Loki.” A rebuke.  

“Did you not know that you were endangering the throne to Jotun rule should anything happen to Thor? Or do you have another inheritance planned?”

“Loki.”

Loki stopped laughing, and he slid the rest of the way to the floor and put his face in his hands.                 

Fabric rustled beside him as Frigga once again knelt down next to him. He felt her hesitation, and he shrank away before she could decide whether or not to put her hand on his back.

“Please leave,” he muttered, keeping his face covered, hardly able to speak over the choking tightness in his chest.

“Loki…” A plea.

“Leave me.”

She obeyed him, but it didn’t help, and his world continued to break apart. Loki locked the doors and hid from Heimdall.

Water gathered on the carpet between his knees.

**Author's Note:**

> This scene is originally from my work "Shadow of the Night" from my series "Rediscover the Dawn". It stands as its own work, however, so I decided to publish it as such.


End file.
